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Sir— From time to time people report having seen unexplained objects in the skv which have come to be

called 'nying saucers.' There have been many explanations of them — the sun shining on high flying aircraft — meteorological balloons — imagination, &c. There is another possibi lity that may account for some of them, which has not been suggested, as ' far as I know. On known dates in each year, the earth passes through meteor streams. These are the remains of meteors that have distin tegrated in outer space, but which continue their orig-' inal paths round the sun in the form of streams of solid particles or meteoric dust. The fact that the earth moves round the sun in a fixed path and that these debris of meteors also move round the sun in fixed paths, means that the paths of the earth and of some of these meteoric streams in tersect each other on a series of dates which are the same each year. The earth sometimes takes a number of days to pass through the more im portant of these ; meteoric streams. The dates of maximum meteoric ? activity: are January 3, April 21, May 4, June 8, June 30, July 28, August 10-13, October 10, October 20-23, November

3-10, November 14, Novem ber 16 and December 11-13. I have lists of the dates over the last several years 3ri which people have re ported having seen 'flying saucers' in Australia, and tiave compared them with the dates on which the earth passes through the principal meteoric streams. There appears to be a no ticeable relationship be tween these two sets of dates. By this I mean that there tends to be a grouping of flying saucer sightings round about the meteor stream dates that it is hard to believe is by chance. And again, there is a re lative absence of 'flying saucer' reports during the principal gaps between meteor-stream dates. . . For instance, the mini mum meteoric activity of the year is between January and April. These are also the months in which fewest 'flying saucers' have been reported in Australia. I do not suggest that this evidence is by any means complete, or that it is, at best, more than a partial explanation of. 'flying saucer' phenomena. All that I suggest is that there is some evidence that people seem to report other wise unexplained objects in the sky round about the dates on which the earth passes ? through the princi pal meteor-streams, and there seems to be a lull in the reporting of flying saucers in between these dates. I do not suggest any more than that what I have said may be an explanation of at least a proportion of the 'flying saucer' reports. ' R. G CASEY. Minister for External Other Letters on Page 4.